


no sweeter innocence (than our gentle sin)

by petitepeach



Series: tarot prompts [2]
Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Fluff, Happy Halloween!, M/M, Prompt Fill, but it's okay so is lucas, eliott is a dork, gratuitous kissing, some sexy stuff, vaguely a college/university au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 05:22:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21230495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petitepeach/pseuds/petitepeach
Summary: for the tarot card prompt:the devil: failure, lust, temptation"you want it too"possible AUs/settings/ideas: desire, nsfw, unrequited love, demon au





	no sweeter innocence (than our gentle sin)

It begins with Eliott coming out of his room at seven p.m. to tell Idriss and Sofiane that he’s no longer coming to the Halloween party they’re hosting that night.

He’s groggy from a nap, still suffering from a headache that’s plagued him all day, and he’s desperate to dive back under the covers, to lock himself in his room and watch black and white monster movies until it’s safe to come out.

He’s not prepared for the looks of utter betrayal that meet him in the living room, Sofiane and Idriss freezing in the middle of stretching swaths of fake cobwebs across the ceiling, a techno mix of the Monster Mash playing in the background.

“But Eliott,” Sofiane says, eyes wide, “you promised.”

Eliott tries a weak argument, saying he doesn’t have a costume, definitely doesn't have time to make one now, but that is quickly shut down by Idriss, who calls in a last-minute favour from Imane.

_Do you or any of your friends have something Eliott can wear? He didn’t plan anything because he’s lame._

Just after nine p.m. Eliott opens their apartment door and a cascade of loud, giggling girls spills into the entryway, one of them wearing a skeleton onesie holding up a bottle of white wine like a ceremonial offering and another, dressed as Wonder Woman, thrusting a cloth bag into Eliott’s face.

“Eliott, yeah? Here’s your costume, gorgeous.”

So, it ends with Eliott standing in his kitchen, holding a cup of the “mystery punch,” and wearing a full angel costume, wings and halo and all.

(Or maybe, this is where it really begins.)

He’s alone, nursing his cup of disgustingly sweet punch slowly, closing his eyes so the neon colours from Idriss’s blacklight projectors are nothing more than muted flashes behind his lids. His headache is pretty well gone, but he’s tired, a bit grumpy, and the last thing he wants to do is throw himself into the pulsing mob of people taking over his apartment.

He drums his fingers restlessly across his leg, tapping out the beat of an imagined song. He thinks about sneaking onto the balcony for a cigarette, thinks about letting himself be carried away by the windy night, thinks about laying down in his dark room and throwing layers of blankets over himself until the throbbing bass of Idriss’s music is soft enough to be indiscernible from his own pulse.

He glances at the stove, at the digital clock displaying _23:00_ in tiny blue numbers.

_One hour_, he tells himself. _I’ll stay for one hour, then I’m going to bed._

“Yo.” It’s Idriss, appearing at Eliott’s side out of thin air, holding onto a plastic chalice filled with pale liquid that glows neon under the black lights. A gold crown is sitting crooked on the top of his head and he's wearing an expression Eliott is immediately suspicious of.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just think you should come into the living room. You know, to socialize.”

Eliott frowns. “I’m socializing.” He says it a bit defensively, a bit embarrassed, waving his free hand between them. “I’m literally socializing with you right now.”

“Not with _me_.” Idriss hisses, eyes darting to the kitchen doorway. “You should be socializing with other people. With the people in the _living room_.”

“What?”

“_Socializing_, Eliott. In the _living room_.”

“Why do you keep saying those words like that? Is it supposed to be a euphemism for something?”

Idriss sighs, long and loud, tilting his head back to the ceiling, his crown sliding further back on his head.

“Just know,” Idriss tells the ceiling, “I tried to be subtle. I really did.” He returns his gaze to Eliott. “That guy in Imane’s class you like is here.”

For a moment, Eliott genuinely has no idea what he’s talking about. “Who?”

Idriss stares at him. “Seriously? The guy you've been talking about for months? You know, the one with…” Idriss rests his elbows on the counter, blinking up at Eliott dreamily, “…eyes so blue I could drown in them.”

“My voice doesn’t sound like that.” Eliott argues automatically, which is good. It’s good he's able to get an entire sentence out despite how his brain is whiting out in panic.

“It does when you’re in love.” Idriss coos, bopping Eliott on the nose.

“I’m not in love,” Eliott says, horrified. He darts his eyes over to the kitchen doorway, still thankfully empty. “I’m not…I just…”

Idriss laughs, gently patting Eliott on the arm. “I know. I’m just messing with you.” He dunks his cup into the punch, taking a loud slurp off the top when it resurfaces. “But he actually is here.”

“Oh god.”

“Which is why,” Idriss says, “you should come into the living room. Imane can introduce you.”

“Oh _god_.” As if the idea of leaving the safety of the empty kitchen wasn’t already terrifying. Eliott has been crushing on this boy for weeks from afar, ever since he saw Imane walking with him across campus one golden afternoon in September. _Oh_, he thought, taking in a small frame, bouncing brown hair, and a sweet face. _He’s cute_. Then Imane had said something that made the boy laugh, and Eliott felt his entire chest cave in.

_Oh_, he thought, clutching onto his takeaway cup of tea like a life preserver—helpless, unmoored, devastated. _He’s beautiful._

Ever since then, Eliott’s life has been a swinging pendulum of desperately wanting to see him again, and then running in the opposite direction when he does see him again, overtaken by infatuated panic. One time he actually leapt behind a trash bin. He’s not proud of it.

“Eliott, come on.” Idriss ducks to meet his eyes. “You’re on home turf, you’ve got your boys to back you up, and you look hot as fuck.” He flicks at the halo on Eliott’s head. “There are literally no better circumstances in which to shoot your shot with your dream man.”

“Idriss, I’m wearing _wings_.”

“And? Maybe he’s got a thing for that.”

Despite himself, Eliott bursts into laughter. “Jesus Christ.”

“Calling in favours from your friends. Okay, I see how it is.” One of his hands falls to Eliott’s shoulder, squeezing it gently. “Seriously, Eliott, listen. If you're really uncomfortable you don't have to talk to him. You don’t have to do anything. But I’ve had to hear you waxing poetic about this guy for _weeks_, and I want this to happen for you. I really do.” He sighs. “It’s the romantic in me.”

“What if he doesn’t like me?” Eliott mumbles, and suddenly it’s like he’s in primary school all over again, staring down at his shoes while he asks Thomas Chartrand if he wants to share Eliott’s pencil crayons with him.

Only now there’s Idriss, staring at Eliott like he’s just asked him the easiest question in the world. “Then he’s an idiot, Eliott, because you’re amazing.”

The words could sound like trite placation from someone else, but there’s an easy surety in Idriss’s voice that makes something rattle free in Eliott’s chest, something ugly and heavy that he hadn’t realized had been weighing him down.

He takes a steadying breath. “Fine, fine, okay. I’ll come. I’m just gonna…” He wiggles his cup in the air. “…fortify.”

Idriss cackles as he strolls out of the kitchen. “Atta boy, Demaury!”

As soon as he’s out of sight, Eliott collapses back into the counter, knocking back the contents of his cup.

He’s psyching himself up too much, and he’s painfully aware of it, of the way his heart is stuttering in his chest, the way his fingers are restlessly dancing over his now empty cup. He’s so nervous just from the the thought of seeing him, and it’s ridiculous, it’s completely ridiculous because Eliott doesn’t even know if anything is going to happen, just because—

“Oh wow. An angel.”

Eliott’s head snaps up, and of course, of _fucking_ course.

Just like that, he’s there, standing in the entryway of Eliott’s kitchen, plucked from the deep caverns of his thoughts and made real. He’s dressed in black jeans and a black long-sleeve shirt, he’s holding a beer bottle loosely by the neck and he’s wearing a smile that could only be described as _wicked_.

There’s a chance Eliott might pass out.

Then his eyes land on the two small, red horns nestled in the boy’s hair, and he lets out a hysterical bark of a laugh.

The boy’s grin deepens. “It’s funny, isn’t it?” He says, stepping into the kitchen, to where Eliott is stuck still at the counter, fingers gripping tightly onto the edge. “An angel and the devil walk into a party. The set up to a joke we’ve all heard.”

“Yeah,” Eliott says, scrambling for something to say. “Except I live here.”

“I know you do.”

Eliott blinks.

“Sorry.” The boy laughs, holding his hands up. “That sounded weird. I mean, you’re Eliott.” There’s another pause, and the boy rushes to fill it. “I know Sofiane and Idriss through Imane and they, uh, they talk about you all the time. I’m Lucas,” he tacks onto the end, tapping the centre of his chest with his beer bottle. “I’m in Imane’s year.”

It’s a lot of information to take in at once: that the boy’s name is Lucas, that Lucas already knew who Eliott was when he arrived tonight, the apparently Idriss and Sofiane have talked to Lucas about Eliott before. Apparently they do it all the time.

Eliott is going to have _words_ with them about that later.

But right now—

“It’s nice to meet you, Lucas.” Eliott says, extending a hand out. The gesture feels a little formal in the setting they’re inhabiting: the empty plastic cups and neon lighting and distant drunken shouting, but it also feels like it might be the right one.

Lucas smiles, and grasps onto Eliott’s hand and that, holy shit _that_ feels right.

“It’s nice to meet you, Eliott the angel.” Lucas parrots, and he winks.

It really shouldn’t work. It’s not even a good wink: it’s lopsided and awkward but Eliott still flushes from it, and then when Lucas huffs a laugh, lowering his eyes like he’s embarrassed, something feather-light and dangerously fond stirs under Eliott’s sternum. He follows Lucas’s gaze to where their hands are still locked together.

“Do you, ah…” Eliott licks his lips, shifting awkwardly on the spot. “Do you want to dance?”

Lucas’s gaze snaps up to his. “Yeah.” He say excitedly, his face lighting up in another smile. There’s a pink flush on his cheeks that Eliott wants to memorize, to try and recreate on his sketchpad later. “Yeah, come on.”

Eliott nods, and leaves his empty cup behind, letting Lucas tug him out of the kitchen by his hand, letting himself, finally, be pulled into the chaotic throng of people.

Somewhere, faraway, Eliott thinks he can hear a faint sound—maybe it’s a choir singing, maybe it’s the voice of god, if they exist, or the voice of the universe, but what ever it is, it’s telling Eliott to pay attention, not to forget what happens next.

_Get ready_, the voice, song, sound says to him. _Get ready, Eliott._

Eliott can feel the wind racing past his ears. Like he’s at the top of a slide.

_Let’s go._

🕸

It all feels like a dream.

There’s Eliott, dancing to _Electric Feel_ with a boy, but not just any boy. It’s Lucas, the boy Eliott has been infatuated with from the first moment he saw him, and it’s not just dancing, it’s moving freely, rapturously, forgetting that he’s in a corner of the living room, forgetting that he’s inside his own apartment.

He’s aware only of Lucas: of Lucas’s hands ghosting touches along his waist, down to his hips; of Lucas’s toothy smile and his loud laugh; of the smell of Lucas’s hair when he gets bumped into Eliott’s chest, the feel of him pressed close.

Lucas giggles at Eliott’s flailing dance moves, then tries to copy him, and Eliott forgets to feel self-conscious. He expected he would be nervous around Lucas, and he is, nervous in a way that feels familiar and new at the same time, but it also feels so easy with Lucas: to dance with him under Idriss’s shitty black lights, to laugh with him when one of them trips and they collapse into one another, to sing in broken English along to the songs they both know.

It feels so easy. Like breathing. Like falling into the best dream Eliott has ever had.

He catches Idriss’s gaze across the room, and when Idriss points at Lucas and gives Eliott a conspicuous thumbs-up, Eliott only grins.

They give up dancing to join a semi-circle of truth or dare spilling onto the floor form the sofa, something that seems like a bad idea to Eliott when they first sit down, but turns out is a fantastic one when Lucas picks dare and Alexia, the girl who brought Eliott his costume, dares him to kiss the most attractive person in the game.

A series of _oooooh_’s rise up from the other players, but Eliott is barely able to register them before he feels warm, soft lips pressing to his cheek.

Everything stops.

Or more like, everything moves slowly. Like Eliott is underwater.

He can feel the weight of the collective gaze of the circle, expressions ranging from surprise to delight to smugness. Someone next to Eliott makes a swooning sound.

Lucas’s hand is on Eliott’s knee, giving him leverage to reach his cheek, and when he pulls away, Eliott can hear him make a small gasp, an exhale that shakes and shivers and tickles Eliott’s skin with warmth.

The entire moment lasts, in reality, a handful of seconds.

Then Lucas’s lips are gone, his hand is gone, and Eliott is physically holding himself back from following him, from kissing Lucas’s cheek, or maybe kissing him on the mouth, pressing him down into the carpet and making him gasp again, or maybe just leaning close enough to ask, _Did you mean that? Did you kiss me on the cheek because you want to kiss me on the mouth? Do you like me? Do you feel as hopeless as I do right now? Do you also feel like you’re drowning?_

Eliott doesn’t know if he’s ever wanted anything so badly as he wants to know the answers to those questions.

The game moves on, and it’s Lucas’s turn. He sends it right back to Alexia, asking her to reveal her most embarrassing sex fantasy when she picks truth.

Instead of shying away, she scoffs at Lucas. “That’s so fucking easy, Lallemant. It’s to do it in the dance studio on campus. You know,” she wiggles her eyebrows, “where all the mirrors are.”

That gets a riotous cheer from the group, and Eliott joins in, letting it distract him from the lingering sensation of Lucas’s lips on his cheek, from the obvious way Lucas is avoiding Eliott’s gaze.

Then, it comes to him.

“Eliott. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.” Eliott answers immediately.

Alexia smiles, resting her chin in her folded hands. “If you had to kiss someone in the circle, who would it be and why?”

Eliott thinks he’s beginning to understand Alexia, the more time he spends with her. Underneath that sweet, bubbly exterior there lurks an evil mastermind.

Someone else in the circle, a girl who Eliott thinks is dressed as Britney Spears, complains that the question is too similar to Lucas’s, but Alexia shushes her.

“Well, I mean,” Eliott shrugs, painfully aware of how intently Lucas is staring at the floor now, like he’s about to find the meaning of life there. “I would choose Lucas.”

Another chorus of _oooooh_’s rise up, but Eliott is only aware of Lucas’s head snapping up, the tops of his cheeks coloured that same pretty pink Eliott saw in the kitchen.

He wants to feel that colour it under his fingertips.

“The second part of the question is _why_,” Alexia sing-songs from her spot on the sofa.

Eliott nods. He doesn’t think there’s an answer he can give to this question that won’t sound completely wanky. Saying _because he’s beautiful_ would be trite, and a bit cheesy, and saying _because I’ve had a crush on him since the moment I first saw him_ would probably make him sound like a creep. So, Eliot tries to go for something simple. Something true.

“Because I can’t imagine kissing anyone else.”

He’s not expecting the reaction that gets.

Two girls across from him in matching doll costumes let out loud, drawn-out _awwww_’s. The boy sitting next to him in a football jersey cheers, slapping Eliott on the back. Another girl in the circle, wearing a cowgirl outfit, practically melts, “And they’re wearing matching costumes! Fuck me, that’s so cute!”

Then, there’s Lucas.

Lucas, who’s finally looking at Eliott again, his mouth dropped open into a shocked _o_, his eyes wide and bright.

Eliott now wonders if that was the wrong thing to say. Maybe it was too much for Lucas. They’ve been flirting, yeah, but Eliott is working off of a month-long crush that’s growing helplessly worse with every minute he spends in Lucas’s presence. To Lucas, Eliott is sure he’s just a guy he met at a party.

Someone is telling Eliott to go, that it’s his turn, and he pulls himself out of his thoughts, locking on Sofiane’s warm, familiar face on the edge of the circle. He chooses dare, and Eliott orders him to give an a capella rendition of _Don’t Stop Me Now_.

Sofiane does it happily, and as he’s bouncing around the edge of the circle, spouting Queen at the top of his lungs, Lucas is leaning into Eliott’s side, close enough to whisper in his ear,

“Is there somewhere quiet we can go?”

Eliott doesn’t even think about it before he nods, and this time he’s grabbing onto Lucas’s hand, helping him up from his spot on the floor, ignoring the conspiratorial looks being shot to them from everyone still in the game. The cowgirl winks at him.

He doesn’t know if Lucas is asking them go to somewhere where they can be alone, alone, but Eliott feels a little overwhelmed from the noise, a little sweaty under his robe, and he wants exactly what Lucas is asking for—somewhere quiet. Somewhere they can talk.

He leads Lucas back towards the kitchen, and on the way there they pass a group of boys huddled close together near the entrance. As they get close, Eliott can see one of them, tall, handsome and wearing a grey robe with a green pyramid taped to the front, raising his eyebrows.

“Well, hi Lucas.” He says cheerily, a smirk teasing a the corners of his mouth. “Where are you off to?”

“Nowhere.” Lucas replies, just as cheerily.

One of the other boys, blonde and dressed as a vampire, laughs. “Nowhere, huh? And who,” his eyes snap over to Eliott, “are you going nowhere with?”

Everyone turns to Eliott, and he feels his cheeks warm under their speculative gazes.

Lucas, though, rolls his eyes. “You guys know Eliott.” He says easily, tugging Eliott closer by their linked hands. “He lives here. With Sofiane and Idriss.” He points at each of the boys with his beer bottle as he lists their names. “This is Yann, Arthur and Basile.”

The third boy, Basile, sporting a head of curls and navy boiler suit, sticks a hand out to Eliott. “I mean, we’ve never met, but we’ve heard a lot about you, man.”

“Um.” Eliott reluctantly releases Lucas’s hand to shake the offered one. “Good things, I hope?”

“The _best_ things,” Basile says sincerely. “In fact, the first time I heard about you was when Lucas—”

“Right, okay!” Arthur interrupts, yanking Basile away from Eliott by the back of his boiler suit. “Time for another drink, boys, or what?”

“Nice to meet you, man.” Yann claps Eliott on the shoulder, grinning. “I’m sure we’ll see you around.”

But instead of taking off to the kitchen, where the bowl of mystery punch and fridge stocked full with cheap beer and wine wait, they return to the living room, quickly swallowed up by the crowd that’s moving back to their tiny dance floor, _Disturbia_ blasting from Idriss’s speakers.

Eliott spares a mournful thought for the inevitable neighbour complaints they’re going to get.

Then he feels a hand slide against his, fingers linking back together.

“You were taking me somewhere?”

And well, yeah. Eliott feels like he may have missed something with Lucas’s friends, some dramatic irony he’s not privy too, but he also has Lucas holding his hand, the memory of Lucas’s lips on his cheek, and Eliott wants to be alone with him. He wants it so badly.

“Yeah, just let me get some water.”

He fills an empty plastic cup from the sink and guides Lucas through the kitchen, to the hallway leading to their bedrooms, where Idriss set up a white sheet over a lamp with a sign hanging off of it that says, _All trespassers will be haunted_.

“Ah. So this is the part where you take me to your bedroom?” Lucas teases when they step around the makeshift ghost, bumping his shoulder against Eliott’s.

He wasn’t planning on it, but the suggestion, the curve of Lucas’s lips when he says it, sends Eliott into a tailspin of images: flashes of Lucas spread across his bed, sitting on his desk, standing in front of his window, his silhouette outlined by moonlight.

“No.” He blurts out, clearing his throat to mask the roughness of his voice. “I mean, I wasn’t planning, like I wasn’t asking you too…” His voice trails off, and he points behind Lucas, to where the door to the balcony is. “We can go outside.” He says helplessly, still recovering from the onslaught of decadent fantasy.

Lucas hums, turning to follow the direction of Eliott’s finger. “Actually, that sounds nice. It’s kinda hot in here, isn’t it?”

Eliott takes a deep breath. “Sure is.”

It’s blissfully cold out on the balcony, the ground littered with brown leaves that flutter and dance with every gust of biting wind. Lucas shivers, crossing his arms over his chest. He leans back against the door, gaze roaming to the apartment buildings across from them, to the streetlight on the corner, pale orange and flickering at odd intervals.

Eliott can hear faint music coming from another apartment, something dramatic, filled with bold, heavy organ. Below, there are groups of teenagers marching in a line down the street, capes, cloaks and long dresses billowing behind them, drunken laughter wrapping around their bodies like a well-worn blanket against the crisp autumn night.

The comparative quiet of the street, away from the chaos of the party, feels like something from a film: the flickering glow of the streetlight soft and knowing, the wind whispering with mystery when it curls around Eliott’s neck. It reminds him so much of what he used to love about Halloween when he was younger: the uncanny strangeness that always came with it, like the night itself was separate from linear time and space.

“I used to hate Halloween when I was kid,” Lucas says, his low voice breaking the spell of quiet.

Eliott turns to face him. In the blackened, star-touched night and the slanted glow from the streetlight, Lucas really could be an otherworldly creature, devil horns or no; something ageless and ancient, ethereal and terrifying.

“Why?”

Lucas rolls his beer bottle between his hands. “I hated being scared.” He says softly. “But I never wanted to tell anyone. I didn’t want to be seen as…weak, I guess. And then,” he shrugs, “it wasn’t easy, before my parents split. Holidays in general could be pretty hard.”

“I’m sorry,” Eliott says, and he knows the words themselves aren’t meaningful but he really means them. He can hear the exhaustion in Lucas’s words, a heaviness that speaks of burdens still being carried.

There’s a crease between his eyebrows. Eliott wants to kiss it away.

“No,” Lucas sighs, his head thudding back against the glass. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unload that on you.”

“It’s okay.” Eliott tells him softly, tapping his fingers along the rim of his cup. “And I—I mean, I’m happy to listen to anything you want to tell me.”

“You’re easy to talk to.” Lucas says, and Eliott smiles. “I feel like I’ve known you for years.”

“Me too.”

They stare at each other across Eliott’s tiny balcony, both of them smiling, cheeks pink from the cold. Both of them imagining what would happen if they were to kiss. If it would make the world itself fall away from beneath their feet.

Eliott leans back against the railing, tilting his head up to the night sky, to the half moon cast in cloud, “I used to love Halloween.”

Lucas smiles, taking a shallow pull from his beer. “Oh yeah?”

“Mhm.” Eliott’s angel wings are squished against the railing, pressing into his shoulder blades. “I started planning my costumes in the summer, and I’d make most of them from scratch with my mom. I was…pretty intense about it.” He can see it so clearly in his mind, the endless hours of sewing and glueing, and he laughs, closing his eyes. “I always loved how strange it is. How there’s an entire day devoted to everything that’s otherworldly. To everything that we’re scared exists, but love to believe in. I dunno, to me it always felt like the night where anything was possible.”

He lets his voice trail off, lost in memories.

“What changed?” Lucas asks after a moment. “You said you used to love it.”

Eliott shrugs, but he knows the answer. He got older, he got diagnosed and he began distancing himself from anything that was weird, any interests that would make him seem too different. It aches to think about, like prodding at an old scar. “I got older. I changed.”

“Do you feel any different about it now?”

Eliott slowly opens his eyes, smiling when his gaze lands on Lucas. “I think I’m starting to.”

Lucas nods, a matching smile curling at the corners of his mouth, dimpling his cheeks. “You know what? Me too.”

_God he’s so beautiful_.

It’s the sight of him: the wide, pretty eyes, the pouting, pink lips, the smooth curve of his neck, but it’s also the knowledge of him, of Eliott seeing firsthand how funny and sincere, sweet and sarcastic he is. He thought having Lucas as a crush that existed inside his daydreams was damning enough, but he was in no way prepared for the reality of Lucas: the endlessly endearing imperfections of him.

With every second that passes, he’s sinking deeper into an ocean of hopeless infatuation.

Eliott registers another silence growing between them and he realizes he’s staring, making moon eyes at Lucas like he’s a devout art student who’s just stepped into the Louvre for the first time.

He drops his gaze, face warm, and takes a swig of water to play it cool, but somehow manages to miss his mouth entirely, cold water trickling down his neck to his white robe.

“Fuck.” Eliott sighs, wiping a hand down his chest. Reason number three-thousand and five why he should never try to play it cool.

There’s a clink of glass being set down on the ground.

“Oh no, Eliott,” Lucas says on a laugh, and Eliott’s vision is suddenly filled with glittering red horns poking out of fluffy brown hair, Lucas stepping close enough to him that, if Eliott wanted, he could tilt his head down to rest his chin on the top of Lucas’s head.

“That wasn’t very smooth,” Lucas teases him, plucking the plastic cup from Eliott’s grasp. Eliott watches, rapt, his hand hovering uselessly in the air, as Lucas takes a sip from it.

“I have to tell you,” Eliott says, eyes fixed on a single drop lingering on Lucas’s bottom lip. “I’m not very smooth. At all.”

Lucas grins, leaning over to set the cup down on one of the metal chairs pushed into the corner of the balcony.

“I have to tell you,” Lucas says, matching Eliott’s solemn tone, “I really, really like that you’re not.”

“You make me nervous.” Eliott blurts out, and he can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed, not when Lucas makes this shocked, delighted face, like Eliott just gave him the best gift in the world.

“Oh my _god_,” Lucas giggles, and he’s gripping onto the front of Eliott’s robe. “Are you kidding me? You make _me_ nervous. You actual, literal angel.”

Eliott blinks. “I do?” He asks, but the end of the question is caught by Lucas’s lips pressing against his.

It’s not rushed, not a desperate crush of their mouths like Eliott had initially pictured, based on Lucas’s frenetic energy, his bursts of confidence that exploded like fireworks. It’s gentle, a barely-there touch of lips that makes Eliott’s head swim.

They part with a quiet _smack_, but Eliott catches him before he can get too far away, cupping Lucas’s cheeks in his hands and lowering his head to kiss Lucas like he’s been wanting to all night, deep and lingering, stroking his thumbs across the smooth skin of his cheeks.

Lucas lets out a low whine against Eliott’s lips. His hands find his waist, skirting around to his lower back, pressing into the base of his spine. His lips part Eliott’s on a gasp, and there’s Lucas’s tongue, warm and sweet, and Eliott presses forwards, tilting his head to try and get closer, closer, until his halo bonks into one of Lucas’s horns, and both of them snap their eyes open at the impact.

They burst into laughter, and that, if possible, might be more blissful than the kiss itself—Lucas collapsing into Eliott’s chest, snorting in a way that’ shouldn’t be cute but really is, his eyes scrunching up at the corners.

“Fucking hell,” Eliott sighs, still shaking with laughter. “Why am I even still wearing this?”

“It looks good.” Lucas says emphatically. He brings his hands to Eliott’s front, fiddling with the collar of the robe. “It suits you.” One of his fingers follows a trail of water that dribbled down Eliott’s chin to his neck, stopping just above his collarbone. Eliott shivers from the touch.

“Yeah, well,” one of his hands moves to the back of Lucas’s head, brushing through the soft strands of his hair. “The devil horns suit you.”

Lucas giggles, and then his tongue is retracing the trail of water back up, all the way to Eliott’s bottom lip, gently kissing it.

“I think,” Lucas murmurs, lips brushing against Eliott’s with every word, “now would be a good time to show me your room.”

Somehow, Eliott manages not collapse to the ground in a pile of aroused, lovesick boy.

Small miracles.

🕸

They re-enter the apartment much in the same way they left it: holding hands, stepping softly, suddenly shy once away from the secure anonymity of the wide open night.

The party is still going strong by the sounds of it, a roar of cheers filtering into the hallway from what sounds like a nail-bitingly close game of flip cup, but Lucas and Eliott don’t bother to take a look. As soon as Eliott opens the door to his room they’re tumbling inside, Lucas pressing him up against the wall and kissing him, hot and open-mouthed, gripping tightly onto his shoulders.

“Oh god.” Eliott groans, flailing a hand out to lock the door. “_God_.”

Lucas breaks away from the kiss on a giggle, clasping his hands behind Eliott’s neck. “It’s so weird to have you calling out for god when you’re dressed like that. I keep expecting him, her, or whoever they are to appear out of thing air, punishing me for corrupting their little angel.”

Eliott nearly chokes on his own tongue. “What is wrong with you? That sounds like something from an old porn magazine.”

“Eliott, come on. What are the chances that we dressed in these specific costumes? When will we ever get the chance to make these kinds of jokes again?”

Eliott laughs, tugging Lucas closer to him by his hips, flushing only a little bit from his use of _we_.

“I mean it.” Lucas says. “We’re in some prime role-play territory right now.”

“You think so? Then let me try.” One of Eliott’s hands slides down to Lucas’s ass, his head lowering to whisper in his ear. “Oh, Lucas. You’re making me so hot, so…horny.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lucas yells, tearing himself from Eliott’s grasp and spinning into the centre of his room. The look of sheer disgust on his face sends Eliott over the edge, bursting into a fit of cackles that has him bending over at the waist.

“You’re the _worst_.” Lucas flings his horns at Eliott, the plastic headband bouncing off of Eliott’s arm. “I can’t believe I ever wanted to kiss you.”

_I can’t believe it either_, Eliott thinks, straightening up. He’s still laughing, the occasional giggle erupting like a bottle of champagne in his chest. Across the room, Lucas is biting down his bottom lip, like he’s trying not to smile, but Eliott’s making it really difficult.

Eliott thinks he might be a little bit in love with that expression.

“Do you still want to kiss me?”

Lucas sighs, makes a show of being annoyed. “Yeah. Unfortunately I still do, so. Get over here.”

Eliott takes a deep breath. He removes his halo, dropping it onto the floor next to Lucas’s horns. “You know,” he says, sliding the wings down his arms, “I didn’t even plan a costume for tonight. Someone lent me this one to wear last minute.” The wings land with a soft _thud_ on the wood. “It’s funny, you could say that it was—”

“Fate.”

Eliott’s head snaps up. At once, the mood in the room shifts, the shadows on Eliott’s floor lengthening with the weight of their gazes. In the darkness, Lucas’s eyes are pools of endless blue-black.

“Yeah.” Eliott whispers. “Fate.”

“You could say,” Lucas swallows audibly when Eliott takes a step towards him, “that it’s the universe trying to tell us something.”

Eliott takes another step forwards. “And what do you think the universe is trying to tell us?”

He takes another step, and one that brings Lucas close enough to touch. Eliott’s hands clench and unclench at his sides.

“I don’t know.” Lucas murmurs. “Maybe it’s saying that we should kiss.”

Eliott doesn’t need to be told twice. His hands find Lucas’s cheeks, tilting his head back gently while he leans down.

“Or maybe,” Lucas breathes shakily against his mouth, “it’s trying to tell us that we should—”

This time, Eliott cuts him off with a kiss. It’s a bit rushed, a bit clumsy, but Eliott doesn’t think he can be blamed, not with how his entire body is aching to touch, to hold Lucas in his hands, to feel his soft lips parting under his.

Kissing Lucas is unlike anything Eliott has ever felt. He could drown in him. Easy as anything.

So he does.

He angles his head to the left and coaxes Lucas’s mouth open, both of them whimpering as the kiss deepens, pressing even more tightly together. Lucas hands are at his lower back again, but they travel upwards, smoothing across Eliott’s back, fingertips digging in on certain swipes of Eliott’s tongue.

It’s dynamic, kissing Lucas, an intoxicating, euphoric push and pull. Their kisses will smooth out, become cleaner, more chaste presses of lips as they catch their breath, and then one of them dives in again and they’re gone, panting into each other’s mouths, kissing hot and wet, then teasing and biting.

Lucas’s hands come up to Eliott’s shoulders and he’s gripping him, turning Eliott on the spot, and shoving him down to the mattress unceremoniously, Eliott’s breath leaving him in a surprised gasp. He props himself up on his elbows, then nearly collapses back down when he sees Lucas, staring down at him like he wants to _devour_ him.

“God,” Lucas sighs, lowering himself to the mattress, crawling up the length Eliott’s body. “You’re so fucking hot,” he says, and his hands are sliding into Eliott’s hair, tugging at the strands as he kisses him.

Eliott’s hands immediately go for Lucas’s hips, palming the curve of his ass, sliding under his shirt to touch the soft skin at the dip of his spine. His robe was pulled up with Lucas, and the hem is at Eliott’s knees now, making it easy for him to raise one leg up, pressing the inside of his thigh to Lucas’s side.

Lucas breaks away from the kiss to glance down. “Are you…what are you wearing under this?”

“Just boxers.” Lucas’s head snaps back up, but Eliott refuses to be embarrassed by it. “What? It’s really hot in the apartment."

“Oh my god.” Lucas whispers. He untangles one hand from Eliott’s hair to smooth over his knee, eyes on the place where the hem of the robe is falling away from Eliott’s legs. “Oh my fucking god, I’m going to come in my pants,” he says, voice pained, and Eliott laughs, tugging Lucas back down into another kiss.

There’s an urgency to their movements that wasn’t there before—their kisses are desperate, the movements of their hands frenzied, roaming across each other’s bodies like they’re trying to touch as much of the other person as they possibly can.

Eliott doesn’t think he’s ever felt like this before—burning from the inside out with a thick, aching rush of want. He feels wild with it, terrifyingly out of control but he doesn’t want to stop. He can’t imagine stopping.

He gasps when he feels one of Lucas’s hands move under the hem of his robe, gripping behind his knee and sliding up to his thigh. There are small fires left in the wake of his hands, as scorching hot as the bruise his teeth left on Eliott’s neck, as the gentle scrape of Lucas’s tongue as it trails across his collarbone.

“_Fuck_,” He whimpers when Lucas kisses him, wet and warm and sloppy and mind-numbingly good.

“I know.” Lucas breathes. His hand slides a little further up Eliott’s thigh, scratches gently against his skin. “I know, angel.” He shifts his hips, letting out a choked-off moan when their erections line up. “Oh, fuck, you’re so hard.” He grinds his hips down, tugging Eliott’s leg higher up on his side. He kisses up the side of Eliott’s neck, bites down on his ear lobe. “You’re so hard for me, baby.”

“Lucas.” Eliott pants, and he’s asking for something but he’s not even sure what, some desperate release from the rubber band being pulled taut along the line of his body. “Please.” He grips onto Lucas’s ass with both hands, guiding him down to meet his own jerking movements up, searching for more friction.

Except, Lucas lets go of Eliott’s thigh, gripping onto his hands instead, pulling them away from his ass and planting them on either side of Eliott’s head.

“_Lucas_.” Eliott whines, so overwhelmed, so close to the edge that he doesn’t even care how desperate he must look right now, trying to buck up into the empty air where Lucas is hovering over him. “Lucas, what the hell, let me touch you.”

Lucas grins. “Hmm, no. I think I like you like this.” He squeezes Eliott’s fingers, lowering his hips back down so he’s sitting in Eliott’s lap.

Eliott lets out a strangled noise at the sudden weight.

“I could ride you like this,” Lucas says causally, as though he’s telling Eliott what he had for breakfast that day. “Until you can’t take it anymore. Until you’re begging me to come.”

Jesus _fucking_ Christ. Eliott is so turned on by the thought of that he can barely see straight, but at the back of his mind, there’s something else, something he’s aching for.

“Okay, yeah, we could do that. Or, you could fuck me.” Eliott says. He tries for the same, casual tone Lucas has adopted, but it doesn’t work. He sounds too strung out, the rubber band inside of him a second away from snapping.

That makes Lucas pause, the slow, teasing movements of his hips stuttering to a halt.

“Yeah? You…” He blinks at Eliott, slow and hazy. “You want that?”

“Yeah.” He does. The more he thinks about it, the more Eliott is sure that’s exactly what he wants to happen tonight. He’s light-headed just from the idea. “I do. Please.”

Lucas releases one of his hands to brush his hair back from his forehead, his eyebrows furrowed together. “Are you sure, angel?”

It’s so sweet, the way Lucas is looking at him. He’s so sweet, stroking his thumb across Eliott’s temple, gazing softly at him. It makes Eliott feel warm, looked after. He smiles, plucking Lucas’s hand from his hair and bringing it to his mouth, kissing the underside of his wrist.

He makes sure not to break Lucas’s gaze. “I’m sure.”

There’s no sudden frenzy, once he says it, no montage of stripping down and getting to business. There’s Lucas, leaning down to kiss him, unhurried, still holding onto Eliott’s hands. There’s Eliott, breaking the kiss to tell Lucas that yes, he really wants to be kissed, but he’d also really like to have sex now, please, and there’s stuff in his bedside table.

Lucas laughs and says _stuff_ in a mock-sexy voice, but he goes, rifling through Eliott’s drawer, holding up the Anne Rice paperback Eliott forgot he stuffed in there with a smirk, and returning with a condom and a bottle of lube.

Eliott gets distracted by Lucas’s abs when he pulls shirt off, feeling the desperate need to apply his tongue to every ridge and divot of them, and then Lucas gets distracted when they wrestle Eliott’s robe off, kissing all the way from Eliott’s shoulder down to his thighs, mouthing up and down the lengths of them, biting into the sensitive, tender skin on the inside, high up near his hips.

By the time Lucas gets the condom on, they’re both delirious with want, overwhelmed and shaking when they come together, Eliott gasping into Lucas’s mouth and Lucas slamming a hand into the mattress, desperately trying to hold himself still.

Even when Eliott whispers _move, please_, Lucas goes slowly, gentle movements that are long, dragging and deep, that make Eliott feel taken apart, piece by piece until he’s nothing but one centre of ecstasy. He digs his fingernails into Lucas’s back, moans so loudly that he’s briefly worried everyone else in the apartment will have heard him, and he realizes he has no idea how long he and Lucas have been fucking for. It could still be around midnight, it could be three in the morning, but the thing is, it really doesn’t matter. It’s just him and Lucas, the time between one kiss and another stretching infinitely into the heavy night.

Lucas is sweating above him, biting down on his lip as he pistons his hips forward, stroking one hand down Eliott’s chest to his stomach. He’s thrown into broken shadow by the moonlight pouring in through Eliott’s window, and Eliott remembers when they were standing out on the balcony, how otherworldly Lucas seemed to him then. And now, Lucas is panting, tense and swearing under his breath and inside of Eliott, his skin scorching hot where they’re pressed together. He’s so unmistakably human in this moment, raw and real, and Eliott thinks it’s the most beautiful he’s looked all night.

Maybe Lucas can hear his thoughts, or maybe they were written on Eliott’s face, the proverbial open book, because Lucas brings hand back up and smoothes Eliott’s hair back, tender and adoring.

_Beautiful_, Lucas says, and Eliott has to kiss him. He has to.

He pulls Lucas back down to him and the kiss is clumsy, with how they’re moving, but it’s good, so good that Eliott can see the edge of the cliff coming, the inevitable plunge to oblivion right under his toes.

_I’m close_, he tells Lucas and Lucas nods, starts picking up the pace of his hips, reaching between them to grasp Eliott in hand.

Lucas says, _Come for me, angel_, and Eliott does, arching his back off the mattress and pulling Lucas close to him, biting down on his shoulder to muffle a broken cry.

Lucas follows only seconds after, and they collapse onto the mattress, sticking together in awkward places and gasping for breath, giggling and kissing each other on the forehead, cheeks, lips, occasionally gasping variations of _holy shit_ and _that was fucking amazing_.

Lucas throws away the condom and Eliott uses Lucas’s discarded shirt to clean himself up, laughing when Lucas notices and snatches it out of his hands.

_You can borrow one of mine_, Eliott says, and he pauses before he adds, _when you leave tomorrow. Or the day after_.

Lucas grins, and searches for his phone so he can text his friends.

🕸

It’s four in the morning and they’re still awake, curled together under Eliott’s duvet sharing stories and secrets in low voices.

Eliott’s head is pillowed on Lucas’s chest, Lucas is playing with his hair, and his eyes are drooping shut. Exhausted and happy. So unbelievably happy.

“I’m really starting to like Halloween again.” Eliott says, and Lucas laughs, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

He feels himself drifting off, on the edge of sleep, when Lucas shifts under him, gently tugging on his hair.

“Eliott?”

“Mhm.”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Mhm.”

“I didn’t have a costume planned for tonight either. Mine was a last-minute borrow.”

Eliott frowns, his near-sleep brain slow at processing the words.

“I…I know Alexia gave you the angel costume, and, well, I think it was the girls’ idea of matchmaking? Because Emma gave me the devil horns, although it took me a while to put it together.” He pauses. “I mean, what I’m trying to say is I should have known my friends would try something because, well, I’ve had a crush on your for weeks and uh, they all know about it.”

“Oh.” Eliott murmurs. He snuggles into Lucas’s chest, yawning around a smile. “That’s funny.”

But then—

Eliott’s eyes fly open.

“Wait, _what_?”

**Author's Note:**

> happy halloween pals 🎃🎃🎃
> 
> thank you so much for reading!!!
> 
> come chat with me about love and spooky things [@lepetitepeach](https://lepetitepeach.tumblr.com)


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